Having been the longest reigning British monarch in history (she’s sat on the throne for a solid 66 years), Queen Elizabeth is quite… particular about a number of things. One of which is her words of choice.
Some no-go words are obvious. I mean, you will evidently never hear Prince Philip referring to Elizabeth as “bae” at any point in his lifetime. But there are also some more surprising words the monarch has reportedly taken a disliking to – like ‘pregnant’. And that’s kind of unfortunate, seeing as her grandaughter-in-law Meghan Markle is currently, well, pregnant.
According to an old magazine article dug out and re-published by Us Weekly, Queen Elizabeth would rather you didn’t use the word pregnant to describe a woman who’s expecting, thank you very much. In Her Majesty’s opinion, words relating to pregnancy are “vulgar”, and there’s a much more preferable way of describing it, we’re informed.
Instead of using the word pregnant, Queen Elizabeth prefers “in the family way” which, I’m not going to lie, is nowhere near as efficient. But the Queen gets what the Queen wants, and so we can probably expect that all previous correspondence between the Queen and the palace officials about Meghan and Harry’s unborn baby will have included the phrase “in the family way”.
Source: Cosmopolitan
